LA deputies wounded in ambush attack sue 'ghost gun' kit maker

Two Los Angeles County deputies who were wounded after a gunman ambushed them in their parked patrol vehicle last September are now suing a Nevada-based gun maker, alleging the company violated both federal and California gun laws by selling a "do it yourself" kit with the parts used to assemble the so-called "ghost gun" wielded in the harrowing attack. 

The lawsuit filed in California Superior Court in Los Angeles County alleges Polymer80 Inc., based in Dayton, Nev., negligently and unlawfully sold an "untraceable home-assembled gun kit" that resulted in the attack on Sept. 12, 2020, outside a transit center on Compton, Calif.

It serves as the latest effort to deal with the proliferation of ghost guns, which are put together from commercial kits or parts bought online. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) doesn’t consider uncompleted kits to be firearms, so buyers don’t have to undergo usual background checks. In most states, the guns aren’t required to have serial numbers.

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Claudia Apolinar was in the driver’s seat, and Emmanuel "Manny" Perez-Perez was in the passenger’s seat sitting in a marked patrol cruiser near the Martin Luther King Jr. Transit Center when surveillance video shows a man dressed in black shorts, a gray sweater and armed with a Polymer80 ghost gun pistol silently approached the passenger-side window, the lawsuit says. 

He ambushed them at point-blank range. 

Apolinar was shot multiple times, including in her face and jaw, and was rendered unable to speak "because the shooter’s bullet had sliced apart her tongue," according to the lawsuit. 

Perez was also shot several times, including in an arm. 

The incident drew attention from former President Trump, who during a campaign rally leading up to Election Day called for the death penalty for anyone who tries to kill police officers.

Three days after the ambush, Deonte Murray was arrested during the pursuit of a carjacker following a nine-hour-long standoff with police. As officers chased him, he allegedly tossed from a car window a Polymer80 handgun, model PF940c, that matched by ballistics to the ambush of the two deputies.

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The firearm had no serial number, just an insignia of Polymer80 stamped on the gun. 

At the time, Polymer80 "manufactured, advertised, and sold firearm kits that included some or all the components necessary to quickly and easily build complete and fully functional frames and weapons, including Glock-style semiautomatic handguns" like the one used in the ambush, the lawsuit says. 

Murray was charged with attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and being a convicted felon illegally in possession of a firearm, among other crimes. 

A California resident, he had a history of prior felony convictions that made it illegal for him to purchase or possess firearms, including convictions for firearm possession, sale and possession of narcotics, receiving stolen property, and burglary and terrorist threats. 

Polymer80 sold "ghost gun kits without serial numbers and without taking reasonable steps to ensure that purchasers are legally allowed to purchase or possess firearms, despite knowing that their deadly products are especially attractive to criminals and would likely and foreseeably end up in the hands of dangerous persons prohibited from legally owning firearms under federal and state law," the lawsuit says. 

The lawsuit further contends that Polymer80 "purposefully sold their products without markings to make it difficult for law enforcement to trace the firearm."

"Defendants knew and could foresee – but consciously disregarded the risk – that they were creating and contributing to a direct and secondary market for illegal, unserialized and untraceable guns, knowing that their firearms were likely to end up in the hands of criminals and were likely to be used for criminal purposes like the ambush shooting of the Plaintiffs," it says. 

Law enforcement agencies say ghost guns are increasingly turning up at crime scenes. From 2016 to 2020, there were approximately 23,906 suspected privately made ghost guns reported to ATF as having been recovered from crime scenes by police, including 325 homicides or attempted homicides.

In California in particular, nearly 33% of all firearms recovered from federal criminal investigations across that state in recent years lacked serial numbers. The ATF has stated that over 40% of its recoveries in the Los Angeles area are ghost guns. 

The lawsuit was filed by Everytown Law, which has sued several other ghost gun parts providers. In February, it joined the city of Los Angeles in suing Polymer80 for allegedly creating a public nuisance and violating the state’s business code.

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The anti-gun violence organization also filed a lawsuit last year against another gun parts seller on behalf of a teenaged girl who survived a 2019 shooting at Saugus High School in the Los Angeles suburb of Santa Clarita. A student, 16-year-old Nathan Berhow, opened fire with an unregistered gun, killing two other students and wounding three before shooting himself.

Also last year, the families of those killed and wounded in a 2017 shooting rampage in rural California sued manufacturers and sellers of ghost gun kits. Investigators said the shooter, Kevin Neal, manufactured an unregistered rifle to target an elementary school and randomly shot at homes and motorists in a rural subdivision about 130 miles north of Sacramento. 

He killed his wife and four others before killing himself.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.